Thursday, 6 February 2014

Open Arms

It’s one of the many reasons why I love being gay. I adore the LGBT community. Yes, we sometimes have our issues, our cliques, internal divisions and spats. But what community doesn’t?

Since arriving in Lederhosen-Land, I’ve found 90% of my friends through gay channels. All the people I’m close with I have met through the awesome interconnectedness that is the gay community.

Last week I went out with some friends to one of the regular monthly gay nights out. Of course there was pre-drinking (which adorably in German translates to “Pre-Glowing”) in someone’s tiny, cramped student kitchen which put me heavily in mind of my own kitchen in halls about 3 years ago.

In this nostalgic tiny kitchen, I was introduced to a friend of a friend, D.

D was lovely.

We got on really well and had fun for an hour or so while really testing the limits of my German as she spoke not a single word of English. We managed well enough.

However, she was the most chivalrous lesbian I’ve ever met. She called a taxi for us all and flat out refused to accept any offer of my trying to pay. As we headed towards the club entrance, she pulled me close next to her and called out “she’s with me” to the lady on the door and magically my €10 entrance fee was waived (thank God).

We bobbed our way over to the bar where she ordered us drinks, only to nod and wink to the bloke behind the bar and drag me off to the dance floor with our free drinks.

It was like being out with a celebrity.

...Or a member of the Mafia.

She seemed to know everyone. She couldn’t take 10 steps without encountering someone she knew. She was a true hub of the community.Anyway. The night was a good one, though after a while I lost track of D who was swept away in a tide of people she knew. Which happened just in time because shortly after, I dropped my phone and in the process of picking it up, slashed my hand on a broken bottle and proceeded to embarrassingly bleed everywhere.

In short, I love our community.

I know there are things we need to work on. The internal divisions within the lesbian community are too many to count. And occasionally I do feel like I don’t fit in with the scene lesbians.

I tend to
hang about like a dorky little femme in my knee high socks and dresses and consider going for a more “scene” look before realising 80% of my
wardrobe consists of cardigans and skirts and it would be far too much
effort.

But despite our obvious labelling problem, within the LGBT community is where I feel most at home.

I love that I can move almost 1000 miles to another country and still find a happy community that will love me and be accepting of any gender or sexual labels I apply to myself.You guys are awesome.-T